Hydrodynamic and Suspended Sediment Transport Controls on River Mouth Morphology

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Departmental Papers (EES)
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river mouth
suspended sediment
potential vorticity
Earth Sciences
Environmental Sciences
Geomorphology
Hydrology
Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Sedimentology
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Falcini, Federico
Piliouras, Anastasia
Garra, Roberto
Guerin, Adrien
Rowland, Joel
Paola, Chris
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Abstract

River mouths building into standing bodies of water have strikingly varied growth habits. This presents a compelling pattern formation problem that is also of great practical relevance for subsurface prediction and managing coastal wetlands. Here we present a generalized 2.5-dimensional potential vorticity (PV) theory that explains sedimentation patterns of a sediment-laden stationary jet by coupling an understanding of vorticity with suspended sediment concentration fields. We explore the physical meaning of this new sediment-PV definition, and its impact on outflow depositional patterns, by analyzing data from a shallow wall-bounded plane jet experiment and by discussing new theoretical insights. A key result is that lateral advection and diffusion of suspended sediment are directly proportional to jet vorticity, a feature that reveals the mechanistic process that forms elongated channels by focused levee deposition. The new PV theory constitutes a more generalized mathematical framework that expands the Rouse theory for the equilibrium of suspended sediment.

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2014-01-01
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Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface
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